Dedicated CD vs Universal Player

admin_exported

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Aug 10, 2019
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Hi guys,

I'm not an out-and-out audiophile but I do like to listen to music a lot so I would appreciate some suggestions.

Currently, I have a very old Marantz PM80 amplifier and a pair of B&W Matrix 2 Series 2 speakers.

Both of these components are out of the ark but were very good quality kit in their day and still are to my ears.

The front end at the moment is a Marantz DV7600 universal player. The audio quality seems very good to me but I'm wondering if it would be worth buying a dedicated CD player as well (I'd keep the DV7600: the upscaling is great and the Tru-Surround is adequate for the odd occasion I watch a DVD).

.
 
T

the record spot

Guest
If you like the Marantz sound, then the SA7003 or its' bigger brother the 8003 might be of interest.

Do you have an estimate of budget? Also do you want SACD? I think the DV7600 already has that, but not seen the spec for that one for ages. From memory it gets a good write-up, but a £500 CD player would be a step-up.

You might land my machine on an end-of-line or ex-dem deal. Not many crop up but it is one very musical player. Delighted with it in fact.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
a good used Marantz CD63 MKII K1 signature cdp can be picked up cheaply on ebay (under £150) and could be a good match?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Thank you both for the courtesy of your replies.

I fancy the Marantz SA7001 KI as suggested but the best price I can see is approaching £500: if I could get one for £300 likle you did I'd jump at it!

I've decided to pick up a Marantz CD63 MkII Signature from EBay and see how it sounds. If I get a significant improvement, I'll probably go the whole hog in due course and get the SA7001 KI or the SA8003 (not much difference in cost from my online searches). If I don't get much of an enhancement, I'll sell the CD63 MkII on again.

Thanks once again.
 
T

the record spot

Guest
The Harman Kardon HD990 CDP is RRP'd (or whatever the term is nowadays!) for £500 but can be had for less than £300 in some places, most likely online. The NAD C545 and Cambridge 550C are probably worth a look too, those also being around the £300-350 bracket. All three should work pretty well with the existing kit I think, though the Cambridge may veer towards the bright and shiny with the Marantz in terms of sound; you'd have to decide if the sonics were okay for your preferences.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
I've seen the Harman Kardon HD990 CDP available for just under £250 delivered online.

However, I hate components that have features that only work with other components from the same manufacturer/range (in this case, the timing feature that works with the CD player and the equivalent Harman Kardon amplifier).

I always feel that some of the expense of the item has been wasted on a feature designed to coerce me into buying more of their stuff.

I think I'll stick with plan 'A'...
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
I believe what you say but I'm not exactly sure what you mean...I know its a digital to analog converter but would it plug into the DV7600 or would it need to be wired into the board...

Do you have an URL where I could see where they are sold?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
connects to the optical or digital out look at dacmagic richer sounds or beresford or musical fidelity vdac

saves buying a cd player
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Naive question #3465: OK. If I buy one of the DAC's I'm assuming that there will be an optical or digital 'out' connector on the DV7600 that will be appropriate.

It opens up linking my laptop up to it though. At the moment, if I play music from the laptop I have to link up via the headphone socket. Which connection would be used from a modern(ish) laptop (Dell Inspiron 9400) to the DAC?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
you can use the usb on the dell but not with old dacs like dacmagic 2 you need the latest model

the new dacmagic beresford an vdac all have usb
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Thanks for the input everyone. There's a whole vista of new possibilities opening up now...

The DacMagic looks like the ideal answer to the original question. Would a DacMagic give similar or better results to buying a Harman Kardon 990? What sort of performance could I typically expect? Similar to budget, mid-range or high end CD?

Also, just check if I've got this right please:

If I buy a Dacmagic (a recent one) then use with the laptop would be a good idea (I get a new source). However, I would need an external USB sound card to link to since my laptop doesn't have optical out? (Link for a suitable soundcard anyone)?

Thanks once again guys: this thread is going off in a direction that I could never have considered alone but it's great stuff. I'd never even considered the possibility of a DAC!
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Hi John,

How does Airport Express link to the stereo system? I can understand that it can link in to the wireless network and that the USB connection can connect to the dacmagic box. Could I play music through Mediaplayer or Foobar or whatever? How does the daisychain hang together?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Personally I think the Airport Express is limiting. If you are wanting to go that route I would consider something like a squeezebox. It's very easy to set up and will stream FLAC files. Hook it up with a good DAC and you are good to go.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
connect your laptop to the dac with a usb cable turn on the dac and windows should find it you dont need airport express just a dac and a usb cable
 

daveh75

Well-known member
one off: you dont need airport express just a dac and a usb cableThat really depend's on whether the op's laptop is close enough to the dac/amp and if they want to be tethered to the dac or not!
 

daveh75

Well-known member
Eileen99:

How does Airport Express link to the stereo system? I can understand that it can link in to the wireless network and that the USB connection can connect to the dacmagic box.The usb on the AE cant be used for streaming music/connection to a DAC! You need to use it's optical/headphone out and either a mini-toslink to toslink cable or a normal toslink to toslink cable+mini-toslink adaptor...Eileen99:Could I play music through Mediaplayer or Foobar or whatever? Out of the box AE will only stream i-tunes/apple content. With the addition of some third party software(Airfoil) you can stream any content to AE.

Airfoil available here
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
daveh75:one off: you dont need airport express just a dac and a usb cableThat really depend's on whether the op's laptop is close enough to the dac/amp and if they want to be tethered to the dac or not!

obviously but doesnt change that you dont need the airport express to make it work the airport express is only if you dont like cables everywhere its not necessary otherwise
 

Gerrardasnails

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Sep 6, 2007
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Eileen99:
Naive question #3465: OK. If I buy one of the DAC's I'm assuming that there will be an optical or digital 'out' connector on the DV7600 that will be appropriate.

It opens up linking my laptop up to it though. At the moment, if I play music from the laptop I have to link up via the headphone socket. Which connection would be used from a modern(ish) laptop (Dell Inspiron 9400) to the DAC?

As you are used to linking your laptop up every now and then using the headphone socket - you can just swap that for a usb cable to the DAC. Your dvd player has digital coaxial out so this would be your best connection from dvd player to DAC. I think you will be pleased with the sound, especially if you use lossless files from your laptop - this would easily beat the cd players that were spoken about earlier. To get the full benefit of this sound though, I reckon an amp and speaker upgrade will be required.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
I was a bit worried that my amp and speakers would need upgrading too. The stuff I have was good quality when new. The amp (Marantz PM80) cost £400 when it was new about 20 years ago from memory: I reviewed it against several other magazine recommended amps which were too 'raw' for me. The speakers were about a grand (bought at the same time). There's a pair of speakers the same as mine on EBay at the moment (going for £350).

I like the idea of the DAC though and will go that way. I can't afford to upgrade the other kit just at the moment but will do so piecemeal in due course.

The DV7600 is quite flexible in many ways and will be staying: it can display photos saved to DVD and will play innumerable MP3's recorded onto DVD at 320 which is good if you just want background music for several hours. The TruSurround suits me for watching films and if I can eke out better quality CD audio I'll be happy.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. I'll post an update in a few weeks to let you all know how I get on.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
I've been looking at the DacMagic and Beresford information on the internet.

I came across two other products that may cover the same ground. These are the Bantam USB Class T-Amp + DAC and the iBasso D10. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge of these products?
 

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